INVISIBLE MAN

An MLK-Day tribute to one of the civil right’s movement’s unsung heroes, Bayard Rustin. For me, he forms a bridge between yesterday’s vital moral crusade – for black dignity – and today’s – for gay equality. If you get a chance to watch tonight’s PBS documentary on the man, I hope you’ll see what I mean.

BRITAIN’S NEW CLOUT: By defying anti-Americanism, the British prime minister has vaulted his country to a position of extraordinary global influence. Gerhard Schroder, eat your heart out.

THE SANE LEFT: Take a look at the London Observer’s editorial yesterday on the Iraq situation. The Observer is the Guardian’s sister-paper. It can be relied upon in most instances to represent left-liberal consensus. And yet it has reluctantly come to acknowledge the strengths of the pro-war argument – on liberal grounds. Here’s the money paragraph:

War with Iraq may yet not come, but, conscious of the potentially terrifying responsibility resting with the British Government, we find ourselves supporting the current commitment to a possible use of force. That is not because we have not agonised, as have so many of our readers and those who demonstrated across the country yesterday, about what is right. It is because we believe that, if Saddam does not yield, military action may eventually be the least awful necessity for Iraq, for the Middle East and for the world.

THE EXTREME LEFT: Check out these photos of the depraved from San Francisco. Routine posters equating Bush and Cheney with Hitler. KKK-style slogans: “I want YOU to die for Israel. Israel Sings Onward Christian Soldiers.” My favorite: “The Difference Between Bush and Saddam is that Saddam was Elected.” I’d say the term “fifth column” is a little esoteric for these goons. And given that this march was organized by the extremist group, ANSWER, it’s no big surprise. Now let’s see when one of the more respectable anti-war types actually condemns this kind of depravity. The Republicans rightly disowned Trent Lott. Yet much of the left expects us to ignore this hatred of the United States. Check out blogger Tacitus’ roll-call of honor for the alleged liberals all too happy to turn a blind eye to the fascists and fascist-supporters who organized their anti-war march.

MORE EVIDENCE: Of Saddam’s continued reach for weapons of mass destruction.

AFTER THE LOTT DEBACLE: Why on earth is the Bush administration doing this?

CHINA’S GAYS: It’s still a truly horrifying place to be a gay man or woman. Not as bad as in the Islamic states, of course, but that’s hardly a good standard.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “A friend in DC emails to tell me that there are 100,000 antiwar protestors on the Mall. I am reminded of watching the New York St. Patrick’s Day parade once with a friend of Ulster Unionist sympathies. As the massed ranks of Irish marched past, my friend sighed and said: ‘The things you see when you don’t have a gun!'” – John Derbyshire, adding yet another minority, Irish Catholics, to the groups (blacks, gays) for whom he affects disdain to the point of revulsion.

ISLAM VERSUS FREEDOM: Yet another example of what happens to free expression when theocratic fascists get into power.